Aníron
by Kenzie Perth
Summary: Sometimes, in order to ensure peace, one has to leave behind everything they've built. Bilbo Baggins has just been dragged into a more-than-slightly suicidal mission with thirteen Dwarves, a Wizard, and a very large secret in order to take back a mountain guarded by a creature that he knows unfortunately well. Featuring: Dragon!Bilbo, Lovable!Meddler!Gandalf, and too many dwarves.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This whole thing is due to a friend of mine - it'll be cross-posted on AO3 when I get my account up. Overall, I'm not expecting this story to exceed ten chapters, but it may get away from me.**

 **I swear I'll update something else at some point.**

* * *

It was mid-morning on a warm summer day when Bilbo Baggin's life changed once again, though if for the better none can say until the venture is seen through. It was also a perfect day for sitting out front of one's smial and smoking a pipe, which is exactly what Bilbo was doing. He had just begun to reach that pleasant hazy state of meditation brought on by only the most excellent pipeweed when a horribly familiar cough sounded in front of him. It was, Bilbo reflected, a remarkably unassuming cough, rather like the sort often produced by the old hobbits who liked to sit on their own front doorsteps and smoke in just the same way - he was stalling.

Bilbo opened his eyes to see two shockingly blue eyes in a wrinkled old face that was uncomfortably close to his own. The wizard straightened up to his proper height, looming over the seated subject of his stare.

"Good morning," Bilbo managed to get out, for it certainly was a good morning so far, and he intended for it to remain so.

In retrospect, he should have realized that Gandalf, with his love of infuriating wordplay, would seize the words offered to him.

"What do you mean?" The Ístari said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?" And before Bilbo could properly answer, he leaned back, and said in a tone that was, in Bilbo's opinion, inappropriately mischievous, "With the amount of pipe smoke you're producing, my dear hobbit, you are rather beginning to resemble a dragon." His tone seemed to indicate that he rather knew that he was wasting time talking to you, and he already knew what you were going to say, but he was willing to humor you anyway.

Bilbo's eye twitched. "Is there something you want?"

Gandalf's self-amusement, if possible, only grew. "I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure." He leaned a little more on his staff. "And I think you, Bilbo, will find yourself having a particularly vested interest in the outcome."

Bilbo's eye twitched again. "What makes you believe that I'm in any need of going on an adventure?" Picking up his pipe, he was about to stick the stem in his mouth again when something else occurred to him. "Besides, I've just begun to reestablish my respectability as a hobbit, and I certainly don't need any Sackville-Bagginses poking their noses in Belladonna and Bungo's stuff."

The wizard's face turned grave very quickly, and said quietly, "If there were anyone else to go to, my friend, I would not have bothered you. But," and here he heaved a sigh that seemed to make even the nearby trees slump for a brief moment, "I'm afraid there is no one else in Arda who would be able to do what is necessary." For a second, his face seemed particularly old and lined before perking back up. "Besides, it wouldn't do for you to grow sedentary, would it?"

The hobbit groaned, admitting defeat and, picking up the pouch of pipeweed and extinguishing the pipe with a quick thumb, stood up. He began to move towards the house when, realizing that the wizard seemed lost in reflection and hadn't moved an inch, turned around a bit impatiently.

"Well, come on in then," he said, gesturing his head towards the door. "Might as well have elevenses while we talk."

Starting, the wizard hiked up his robes and hurried up the path after Bilbo, pausing only to remove his hat before it was knocked off by the low door frame.

The round green door slammed firmly shut behind the pair.

* * *

Bilbo Baggins sighed, his head pressed against the back of a carved wood chair. He sighed once more for good measure; this situation certainly merited it.

Smaug, the Enemy, and dwarves. Three of his least-favorite things, all wrapped up in one unpleasant package that was even more unpleasantly unavoidable. Bilbo had known that Smaug took the mountain, of course. He had felt it the moment the fire-drake had flown into the area, spewing flames and death and in general, unpleasantness. He also knew that there was exactly one place that Smaug would be going - even Bilbo, after all these years and from so far away, could still faintly feel the pull in his dreams of the sheer amount of riches and, of course, the Arkenstone, so it was hardly surprising when Smaug finally awoke, he made a beeline for the Lonely Mountain.

Now, it seemed, the rightful King Under the Mountain was going to make an attempt to take it back; Gandalf had seen the opportunity to create a stronghold in the East against the Darkness combined with a chance to negate the threat of a dragon under the Enemy's control all in one blow, and he had taken it. Bilbo rather suspected that the dwarf king thought that he had found Gandalf; it was no doubt the other way around.

Of course, none of this would be a concern of Bilbao's if it weren't for the wizard's unfortunately well-founded suspicions of a resurgence of evil in the East. Bilbo would do practically anything to stop the Dark Lord from rising again, if only to maintain his own freedom.

Nearly thirteen hundred years as a hobbit had cured him of any love of bloodshed or battle and provided alternate things to covet besides gold and jewels - and besides, it had been around five thousand years before that since Bilbo had been properly in service of a dark force, and he was not eager to break that streak.

(There were still moments when he woke up in the middle of the night, expecting piercing steel in his breast and acidic blood in his throat, ears ringing with the drumming of goblins and screaming of Eldar. Fell beasts of Morgoth did not dream. Hobbits did.)

No, Bilbo Baggins was perfectly happy with being left alone as a hobbit. But it seemed that in order to live in peace, he'd be having to let his carefully built-up lifestyle behind for a while and travel with a bunch of dwarves.

Bilbo didn't have anything against dwarves personally, besides the ones who had attempted to kill him, but there were very few fell creatures who did not despise dwarves, given that their very nature made them difficult to corrupt with anything other than greed, and even more so to kill. It also didn't help that treasure was usually guarded by dwarves, most of whom weren't keen on letting it go.

Also, dwarves tended to stink.

But traveling with an army of dwarves was certainly preferable to allowing any of the Enemy's machinations to proceed, and so Bilbo straightened wearily in his chair and looked over at the wizard who was staring at him concernedly.

"Yes, fine, you win." Bilbo sighed. "Invite your dwarves over for dinner and we'll discuss contracts then."

Gandalf stood up, nodding and brushing off his long gray robes. A couple of steps took him to the door, and he left without so much as a farewell. Bilbo stood up himself and made his way over to the kitchen. He didn't know what dwarves ate, but it would be terribly rude and unbefitting as a Baggins, honorary or not, to not properly feed his guests.

Gandalf was already out of sight down the lane when Bilbo realized he had no idea how many guests he'd be hosting.

He sagged against the kitchen counter for a second, then straightened up. Time to go to the market, it seemed; it was always better to be prepared.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I should really be working on my other stuff. Does that mean I will? ...Probably not, no.**

 **Everything's getting cross-posted on AO3 now, under my account Kenzie_Perth! Yay! I'm also editing it before I transfer it, which is why I only have one story done.**

 **And wow, these are much longer chapters than I usually write.**

* * *

The first thing Dwalin son of Fundin noticed when he walked into Bag End was the Hobbit-Hole's owner. Bilbo Baggins was rather unusual for a hobbit; most of them that Dwalin had seen on his way through the Shire seemed to rather enjoy their food and weren't afraid to show it; Gandalf's Burglar, while not lean in the way hunger lends, certainly made his suit-buttons strain a little less than the average denizen of the Shire. Furthermore, his eyes were unusually large; combined with pupils that seemed perpetually widened and the unusual gold of his iris, his eyes constantly gave the impression of alien fascination. In a group of dwarves, his oddities would fit right in – in a place like the Shire, he stood out like a sore thumb.

The second thing Dwalin noticed was the food.

Drifting through the parlour to the entrance hall was the most delicious aroma Dwalin had smelled in a long time. It spoke of rich sauces and every type of meat under the sun and a few more besides, complimented by a baker's dozen variety of breads and butters and finished with desserts beyond imagining and so much more.

Bilbo's oddities were immediately forgiven in light of such a feast and Dwalin even hastened to remove his boots upon request and introduce himself to the hobbit. It may have gone against his king's orders to scare Gandalf's Burglar off, but Dwalin was pretty sure that once Thorin saw the feast, he would come around as well.

It took Dwalin all of thirty seconds to discover the food tasted as good as it smelled.

Yes, Thorin would come around eventually. That salmon could change anybody's heart.

* * *

Bilbo had just finished locking up all of his doilies, vases, and fine china that he could find when the first of the party arrived. He could smell the dwarf before they even knocked on the door. The smell of dwarves wasn't exactly horrible, it was just…strong. This dwarf was no exception – whoever they were carried the overpowering smell of heavy minerals and metal, soft dirt and stone. Probably not the king, then; Dwarven Kings tended to smell of gold and mithril and far less hard work.

He was halfway to the door before the heavy knock even sounded, and when he pulled open the door, both sides stared at each other in shock for a second.

Standing on the other side was the tallest, scariest dwarf Bilbo had ever seen – he was taller than some of the men in Bree, and very nearly hit his head on the door frame when he stepped inside. Intense dark eyes stared out from underneath thick eyebrows, an effect only amplified by his bald, scarred head covered with twisting blue tattoos. Despite his intimidating appearance, he removed his boots, introduced himself as "Dwalin, at your service," and then took off to the dining room like the beasts of Morgoth were chasing him.

Well, Bilbo thought as he peered round the corner of the parlour door to the dining room, if all dwarves ate like that he might not have enough food after all.

Bilbo proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes alternating between opening the door to three more dwarves, one of whom greeted Dwalin with the incredibly distressing head butt that Bilbo had forgotten about; the other two seemed incapable of pronouncing Baggins (and were clearly siblings. Honestly, they reminded Bilbo a bit of Belladonna and her brothers when they were children, which may have made Bilbo go a bit easier on them), and standing around awkwardly attempting to breathe through his mouth as the dwarves complimented his cooking very emphatically and more often than not, with food still in their mouths.

The doorbell rang again, and Bilbo raced over to greet his guests. As it opened, he barely avoided the avalanche of dwarves that came tumbling through, instead opting to glare at Gandalf who stood behind the pile, smiling bemusedly.

"Gandalf," said Bilbo, "When you said a party of dwarves, I thought you meant five or six. Not," he gestured expansively and then took a minute to count how many there were, "thirteen."

From the bottom of the very fragrant group, a remarkably commanding voice replied, wheezing and gasping only slightly, "Do you have a problem with dwarves, Master Burglar?" A hand emerged from the mess in his doorway, dragging with it a head of silver-streaked black hair and a very regal expression. "For if so," the dwarf continued, "this should be a very long expedition indeed." And with that, he proceeded to extricate himself from the tangle, stand up to his full height, and glower impressively at Gandalf and Bilbo simultaneously.

Thorin Oakenshield had arrived.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** **Third chapter! I don't really know how to feel about this one either; thanks to all the feedback I received, though! It definitely helped me wrestle this one into submission. Again, cross-posted on AO3.**

* * *

Thorin Oakenshield did not surprise easily. When one is next in line for the throne, it becomes necessary to prepare for many different occurrences; strategy classes, besides teaching war, taught planning and more importantly, rolling with the unexpected until it's not quite so unexpected any more.

Which, of course, made his momentary speechlessness upon properly standing up, dusting himself off, and seeing his host and, apparently, potential Burglar of his company, all that more unusual. His appearance was unusual enough, but if that was all it took to give Thorin pause, he would have been quite tongue-tied indeed every time he walked through Ered Luin.

No, what surprised Thorin were the hobbit's eyes. Besides being rather large and unnervingly colored, they looked older than what looked at back at Thorin in the mirror every morning. They were the eyes that had sat in Dwalin's face after he had lost both Fundin and Vitr and his fight, before Thorin had slapped some sense into him in return for all the time that Dwalin had done the same for Thorin.

They were also narrowed in a rather impressively menacing glare for a member of a race whose most remarkable achievement seemed to be growing pumpkins larger than their own bodies.

Thorin cleared his throat, and bowing to an acceptable depth, said, "Thorin, son of Thrain, at your service." The dwarves most recently on the floor lined up behind him. "And these," he added, gesturing broadly, "are Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, and Dori, Nori, and Ori."  
And with that, all seven made their way over to the source of the noise and also the delectable smell, though not forgetting to hang up their hoods on the way.

Bilbo looked down at the mud all over his entryway, up at Gandalf, and sighed.

"If all that is Light wasn't possibly at stake, I should have had you turned out on the front doorstep an hour ago."

And with that, he turned, sticking his thumbs in his suspenders rather self-importantly, and made his way over to the kitchen to make sure no one had found where he had hidden the fine china. Rather bemusedly, Gandalf followed.

It was fortunate that Bilbo entered when he did – or perhaps unfortunate, depending on who one asks.

Despite the new arrivals, the main body of the party had mostly finished eating already, and as Bilbo made his cautious way into the room, surreptitiously wondering if it would be impolite to find a clothespin to clip over his nose, Ori stood up nervously and made his way straight towards the hobbit.

"Excuse me," said the younger, "but I was wondering what I could do with the plates?"

Bilbo was about to answer, as the dwarf was really a paragon of politeness, particularly considering his relatives, when one of the… noisier, and also considerably more immature dwarves snatched the plate from his hand and, with a rather roguish wink at Bilbo (who released a noise that sounded embarrassingly like a balloon letting out air) tossed it straight at his dark-haired brother, nearly nailing Gandalf in the process.

In a matter of seconds, a ridiculous number of plates, bowls, and assorted cutlery were being tossed around like no tomorrow, and though Bilbo could see the dwarves weren't about to drop them, he couldn't stop himself from saying,

"Be careful with that, you'll blunt them!"

Bilbo did not have a good feeling about the wicked grin that overtook the blonde dwarf's face.

And then the singing started.

The amount of coordination displayed was pretty darn impressive, Bilbo would admit. In any other situation, he probably would have enjoyed watching the dwarves perform. As it was, he was far too worried about his plates to properly appreciate the level of skill.

Suffice to say, Bilbo was very close to throwing everyone out, kings or not. Yes, the dwarves had, in the end, cleaned up after themselves, but at the small price of several near heart-attacks.

So he shoved all the dwarves into his parlor, silently apologizing to the upholstery, and headed outside for a quick smoke. When he came back, they were singing again, but this time it was slow and somber.

It took Bilbo a couple more seconds to realize that the song was about their mountain and all that the dwarves had lost, and suddenly, the quest became a bit more important.

"Gandalf," Bilbo whispered, "could you show them to the guest beds? I need to," he fumbled, "pack."

And figure out how to take all his doilies, because they were his mother's, and there was no way he was leaving them behind.

* * *

The next morning, Bilbo headed out quite early, a pack over his shoulder and doilies stuffed in his trouser pockets. Hamfast Gamgee looked initially annoyed to be woken at such an inconsiderate time, but as soon as he saw the look on Bilbo's face, he grew serious.

"This," Bilbo said, dropping a key into his palm, "is to Bag End. Take good care of it, won't you?"

And before Hamfast could properly protest or even inquire to what this was all about, Bilbo was pelting down the road back towards Bag End.

"What's happening?" Bell Gamgee yawned, coming to stand next to her husband where he stood staring out the door.

"You know, I'm not entirely sure."

The Shire hummed its quiet green agreement.

* * *

Oh, Bilbo was going to kill that dwarf once he caught up to him. He had left for all of half an hour to set his affairs in order, and he returned to find not a sign of any of the company besides the copy of the contract sitting on the table next to a half-eaten apple and a rather skillful ink doodle of one of the dwarves – Kili? – deep in thought.

Which, of course, was why he was now running down the lane as fast as his feet could take him in what he hoped was the correct direction, because presumably they would head for Bree, but neither dwarves or wizards had ever proven very predictable in the past.

He had been running for close to half an hour, half-regretting his long years of retirement and most certainly thanking his physiology for somewhat carrying over in this form in terms of increased muscle mass when he finally caught up to the party, waving the contract like a battered flag. Seated rather unceremoniously on a suddenly skittish pony right behind Thorin Oakenshield himself, he finally realized what exactly it was that had been bothering him all last night.

Thorin smelled like gold and silver, yes, but it was buried under years of labor and mining and stress and blood.

He smelled less like a king and more like a leader.

'All right,' thought Bilbo. 'I can do this.'


	4. Chapter 4

Bilbo was sitting on his pony, feeling remarkably pleased with himself and his new revelation, when a jingling bag of coins flew past his ear at a remarkably alarming velocity. His head snapped up, curly hair bouncing.

"Were you," he sputtered, indignation radiating off of him, "betting on me?" (His fury very nearly drowned out the softly-echoing song of the gold and silver that every dwarf had in his pockets).

Though the dwarf who had caught his winnings (…Fili? One of the younger ones, to be sure) had the decency to turn around sheepishly and mouth a silent apology, Bilbo wasn't appeased in the slightest. Another bag soared through the air over the hobbit's head.

Bilbo's eye twitched.

"You!" he rounded on Gandalf, who was tucking another velvet bag into his robes. "You should know that this is quite unacceptable behavior!"

Gandalf smiled in a benevolent and also slightly patronizing way. "My dear Bilbo, I never doubted you would join us on this quest. It would have been foolish to not accept the bet when I already knew the results."

Bilbo huffed, opening his mouth to continue arguing when Gloin rode up past him and stuffed a leftover bun from the night before right when he inhaled. The resulting asphyxiation required the entire party to stop and Oin to thump the hobbit in the back a couple of times before he choked the bun back up.

And so began the first day of Thorin Oakenshield and Company's quest to retake Erebor and slay the dread dragon Smaug.

* * *

The second day wasn't much better. They'd nearly made it to Frogmorton, and it would take at least another two days to arrive in Bree, and until then, it was sleeping on lumpy bedrolls that smelled of dwarf and itched like no-one's business (Bilbo very purposely did not think about how most of the journey after Bree would be through the Wilds, where there most certainly weren't any inns). The younger dwarves had seemed to more-or-less accept him as one of their own after the choking incident; consequentially, the older members of the party seemed to be gradually unfreezing their attitudes as well. This was all well and lovely, and Bilbo wasn't complaining about that; it only made sense to be on the good side of his travel companions.

No, the issue laid in the fact that the dwarves had started treating him like one of their own, which apparently meant lots of backslaps and hip checks, and a general disregard for the fact that hobbits, even those which were not strictly hobbits, were much more fragile than dwarves. To top it off, the Company had stopped filtering their conversations around him as well.

Well, Bilbo thought he was pretty open-minded after all his years alive, but he still heard some things out of those dwarves' mouths that managed to make the hair on his feet curl.

(The irony of his situation did not escape him in the slightest; Bilbo knew full-well that many of the traits that had the dwarves warming up to him after only two days journeying together sprung from his not-entirely Hobbit-ish nature, a nature that would most certainly make the dwarves rather unfond of Bilbo if they knew. )

(So if a tiny bit of Bilbo, a bit that still curled around his heart with scales and claws and slept dutifully most of the time, roared in triumph every time the dwarves did something to show their general acceptance, he thought that could be most certainly excused as celebration about erasing the lines of distrust between species.)

* * *

After a remarkably unpleasant and dirty stay in Bree, Bilbo rather unwillingly found himself in the middle of an argument between Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf.

It was, of course, something about elves.

Gandalf, it seemed, was insistent on taking advantage of Rivendell's hospitality and asking the venerable Lord Elrond Peredhil for his help reading the map, while Thorin was hell-bent on avoiding the "tricky flighty" elves in any way possible. The spat persisted all the way through the next few days, and only ended when the gray Maia stormed off shouting something about being the only reasonable person in the group.

Honestly, Bilbo was rather offended about that one, but in an attempt to appear properly mature, he refrained from commenting and instead helped the other dwarves set up camp in the abandoned farmhouse despite his reservations about the fate of its previous occupants.

Bilbo was so wrapped up in his petulance about Gandalf's words that it wasn't until later that evening when he was taking dinner to Fili and Kili that he realized exactly what had felt off all day.

The sky, by that time, was practically pitch black and the storm that had been a vaguely-threatening mass of clouds on the horizon had rolled in properly by that point, pelting the Company with fat raindrops and howling winds.

A soaking wet Fili and Kili were nervously explaining how the ponies had, two by two, gone mysteriously missing when the stench hit Bilbo full-force. He froze, senses utterly overwhelmed, and motioned for the pair to be quiet; suddenly, a crack of bright-white lightning illuminated, for a brief second, a toweringly huge form holding a kicking pony in each massive hand.

"Trolls," Bilbo said under his breath. This would be so much easier if he were a dragon still.


	5. Chapter 5

Bilbo was regretting every decision in his life that had led him to this point, hanging upside-down in a troll's grotty hand, about to be eaten.

He suspected if he survived this adventure (and wouldn't this be a ridiculous end to his tale? To have lived through the deadliest of battles, have fought against the most skilled of warriors, and to be ended by a trio of trolls that, once upon a time, he would have eaten for breakfast?) Bilbo would have to consider finding himself some new travel companions because the ones he currently had were NOT HELPFUL.

Not in the slightest.

The hobbit shifted a bit in the stone-hard grip, trying to position his chest so that he could actually expand his lungs enough to start talking, firmly shoving down the growl that threatened to rattle through his bones. Gandalf, Bilbo knew, wouldn't just let the quest end here – the old Maia was probably making his way back to the Company as quickly as possible.

This meant, of course, that Bilbo had to stall for time.

The troll next to his current jailer frowned and said, slurring stumbling over syllables, "Bill, you sure 'zats how you cook a dwarf?" He nodded towards Bofur, who was in the process of being tied to a spit by the third troll.

Seeing his opportunity, Bilbo jumped in head first.

"Gentlemen!" His mouth dried up. "You are making a terrible mistake! If you cook a dwarf that way, you'll end up sick!" Chancing a glance back towards the tied up dwarrows, all of whom were in various states of panic, Bilbo winced as Thorin glared up at him with all the hatred of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins being forced to return stolen spoons.

The hobbit sighed and tried to think of something else to add. It was going to be a long wait.

* * *

Frustration and panic (not to mention troll-stink) had covered up the scent of gold up until now, when it bludgeoned Bilbo in the back of the head with whispers of treasure and glitter and metallic-sweet flavor. It was rather like being dropped in a cold pond.

Bilbo swallowed hard, and when the rest of the Company wandered off to investigate the troll hoard, he instead perched himself on a nearby rock that faced the stone trolls and tried very hard to distract himself from the tugging in his gut and the inexorable pull that was fogging his brain with attempting to identify the birdcalls he heard. If this was how he reacted to a comparatively tiny hoard, the hobbit wasn't sure how he would survive Erebor.

It was about the time he reached that question when the smell of wargs and goblins overpowered the scent of fresh growth and pine. Gandalf, accompanied by Thorin and trailed distantly by the remainder of the dwarrows, carried two swords – one long, one short; he had begun to offer the shorter one to Bilbo as he got closer when the hobbit cut him off.

"Gandalf", he whispered urgently, gritting his teeth and trying to temper his sudden instinct to flee, "there is a pack of warg-riders approaching, and I don't know when they'll get here."

The Maia's face bleached white, and he turned back to the Company. "We must make haste!" he cried, gesturing with the larger sword – was the hilt made of a dragon's tooth? – "Danger approaches! Our burglar has heard the howling of wargs not far off!"

Rather than appear immediately alarmed by this news, the dwarves turned to each other and began to whisper. Thorin stepped forwards. "Is our burglar sure of this?" He looked around and continued, "I hear no wargs. Unless, of course, hobbits possess preternatural hearing?"

Bilbo very nearly punched the dwarrow's smug face. He was quite close to doing so, as well, when another wizard burst unannounced out of the brush, carried on a sledge pulled by ridiculously large rabbits. Radagast certainly hadn't become any less eccentric, it appeared – there was still a smudge of bird dropping in his hair that Bilbo had observed the last time the wizard had passed through the Shire nearly forty-five years ago. Even so, he was a powerful wizard in his own right, and Bilbo felt marginally safer with two wizards in the area; it certainly evened the odds of surviving this out a bit.

Gandalf strode forwards and began to speak so rapidly and quietly that the hobbit had no idea what they were saying; the brief bits he could hear sounded unlike any language he had ever heard anyways. The two Maiar straightened and turned towards the rest of the company; both their faces were deadly serious, even as Radagast ran a comforting finger over a mouse that had poked its head out of the flaps of his hat.

"There is a warg pack hunting you." he said, voice steadier and more serious than Bilbo had ever heard. "If you begin towards Imladris immediately, you still may escape detection."

Thorin's face was thunderous, but he was stopped from protesting as the Brown Wizard continued, tucking the mouse back into his hat. "I will lead them away from your path, but you must make haste." And without any further words, ignoring Gandalf's protests, he snapped the reins on the sledge and took off at breakneck speeds, weaving between the members of the company and disappearing into the forest.

Gandalf planted his staff firmly in the ground. "You heard him! Gather your belongings at once and we shall run!"

* * *

They were nearly all the way across the plains to the secret entrance of the last Homely House when the howls of the warg began to catch up to them. After that, it was a matter of minutes before the scouts of the pack were nearly upon the Company – so far, they had evaded detection, but Bilbo suspected that wouldn't last for long.

He just hoped that the elves he had been smelling this whole time would show up sooner rather than later.

The warg currently responsible for their perilous situation snuffled and then growled gently, claws clicking as it slowly moved farther along the outcropping of rock that the Company was hiding behind. As Kili slowly crept out from underneath the cover, arrow loaded and clearly full of grim resolve, Bilbo's ears caught the faintest rumble of hoofbeats.

The elves had arrived.


	6. Chapter 6

Rivendell was as glorious as Bilbo remembered; it was as welcoming, as well, which was proving to be more impressive feature of the two, considering the effort the dwarves were putting towards making themselves terrible guests. The moment the hunting party had rode through the main gate with a party of thirteen dwarves, a hobbit, and a wizard, Elrond had appeared in the main courtyard with an entourage of musicians, healers, and curious elves to welcome the motley crew.

Unfortunately, not was Thorin doing his best to live up to every elven stereotype about dwarves possible, Bilbo himself was beginning to feel rather unwelcome – perhaps half the elves were giving him quite intense stares with no effort made to conceal them, and three had turned so pale upon seeing him that they appeared on the verge of fainting.

Elrond, of course, gave no outward indications that his guests were any more bothersome or even unusual than the traveling elves and wandering Rangers that passed through nearly every day, responding to every rude inquiry and comment with a ridiculous amount of elegance and good humor.

Bilbo let his focus drift back to his surroundings. There was something soothing in the way that nature had intertwined itself so comfortably with the elf-made buildings, compounded by the gentle and ever-present rush of water in the background. The basic architecture hadn't changed in Ages, something Bilbo could readily confirm (it had finally been long enough that there was barely a bitter taste of ash in the back of his mouth when he thought about the ancient cities).

That relative inner peace lasted all through the various trials the dwarves put their hosts through, including dinner, despite the Company's obvious distaste at the food and the elves' only slightly better-hidden distaste of the Company. (Elrond, throughout the whole ordeal, maintained a calm demeanor. Having met his twin sons, Bilbo figured that dinner guests standing on the table and singing probably wasn't that out of the ordinary).

Then, while wandering about the gardens before bed, he rather thoughtlessly ran into Glorfindel.

Gulping, Bilbo tried to back out of the side-garden before the elf noticed, but he had already begun to turn around, signature golden hair drifting in the evening breeze.

"Don't let me frighten you off," Glorfindel began, then turned around fully and realized who was behind him.

There was a moment of silence in which the noise of the waterfalls became suddenly far too loud and overbearing.

"I'll just," Bilbo stammered, "be going, then, I guess?"

He was prepared to book it out of the garden and possibly out of Imladris as fast as his short legs could take him when Glorfindel spoke again.

"No, stay." With a great sigh, the former Lord of the House of the Golden Flower sat down on an ornate bench next to where he had been watching Arien set, his hair swinging in heavy curtains about his face. "It would be impolite of me to chase a guest out of the garden with the best view of Arien's journey in all of Rivendell."

Bilbo stood frozen for a second, and then quietly made his way to the bench opposite the elf lord, awkwardly twisting his hands in his lap. There was another moment of silence, and then,

"I hold you no ill will, you know."

Bilbo's head jerked up, his shoulders nearly reaching his ears as he attempted to compress himself into the back of the bench.

Seeing this, Glorfindel managed a little laugh. "No, no, don't be afraid." He smiled bitterly. "I really don't; I've been made aware by many different reputable parties that the actions you committed were not by your own choice, and had you condoned them, you would not have been granted your second chance. I know full well how the powers of the dark can twist minds."

He breathed in, then out, a great gusting sigh. "If it is not impolite to council you, then I must say: while Elrond may do his best to ensure the safety of everyone under his care, it would still be prudent to be wary, little hobbit, while you are here. Not every elf that lived through the fall of Gondolin has been as enlightened as I have. Nor," he added, "Are they as forgiving."

And before Bilbo could so much as get a word in edgewise, Glorfindel had hastily stood up and brushed right past the hobbit, leaving him gaping, and wordless.

That night, when Bilbo lay down in his bed, it took him until Tilion was nearly in the middle of the sky before he managed to fall asleep, the heavy breathing of a third of the company lulling him finally into the gentle darkness.

Bilbo dreamed of fire and burning ash and rock crumbling beneath his hands and a stream of elves running from the destruction of their home and at last, a sharp whistle piercing through the air and an arrow lodging itself between the joint of his wing and his shoulder and _pain_ , sharp and piercing –

His shout roused Thorin, sleeping in the closest bed, who lifted his head up and said muzzily, "What is it? It's too early to get up, Kili."

When Bilbo didn't respond right away, he said, suddenly much more alert, "Bilbo, why are you up at this hour?"

Bilbo turned his head away from the window to face the dwarf.

"Just a dream. Nothing to worry about."

And with that, he turned over and pulled the soft sheets that caught on the gardening calluses on his fingertips up over his shoulder, willing the images of a burning city out of his head, relaxing his fingers from the claws they had curled into.

In a matter of moments, Thorin's breathing evened out again, and Bilbo's eyes began to feel heavy.

In the last seconds before he slipped off, he thought he saw a flash of gold swing past his vision, holding a sword in one hand and an oddly familiar short dagger in the other.

He resolved to ponder it in the morning, and promptly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.


End file.
